Mass Formation: Nail in The Coffin
(This article is Part-3 in a series. For Part-2, click here.)
This is what you need to understand: academics have to propose and debate notions that expand into intellectual castles in the air.
This is how they build careers.
For example: “theories of historical causation.” “What is the basis for all major events?”
A clever professor can fiddle with this bullshit for 30 or 40 years, pick up paychecks along the way, and retire on a pension.
Mass formation is one of those notions.
You can say the dual “phenomenon” of a billion people going along with COVID restrictions, and political leaders demanding and enforcing those restrictions, all stems from some sort of “mass hypnosis.”
If you do say that, and your university pulls a lever that allows this notion (mass formation) to enter of the lexicon of acceptable terms, you can embroider the notion ‘til the cows come home. You can use the notion in your classes and write papers about it. You can give lectures at conferences.
The more complex you make the notion the better.
Because SIMPLE and STARK are your enemies.
As an academic, you can’t build a career on those enemies.
You can’t tell the truth: A billion people chose to give in to COVID restrictions, and the political leaders chose to issue and enforce the restrictions.
You can’t say that. There would be nothing to teach, nothing to write about.
Worse, you would be claiming, out front, that freedom exists, people are free to make their own decisions, and they’re responsible for those decisions.
Making those claims will get your ass fired.
Modern “liberal academia” has a completely different agenda, which involves special groups of victims who must be compensated for their past and present pain; accusing the wrong people of being the oppressors of these victims; and touting certain political leaders as saviors, whereas those leaders are actually fascist tyrants.
In the dense grottos of such claims, freedom, the individual, and individual responsibility are never admired; rarely are they mentioned.
I’ve left out one thing. Whether or not you, as an academic, get a green light to introduce a new notion/term into the lexicon of intellectual gibberish depends on: who you are.
If you’re saying “mass formation” describes why a billion people fell into line with murderous COVID restrictions, you’re toast before you begin. Obviously.
But if you were, say, Noam Chomp Chomp Chomsky, and you were introducing mass formation to explain how 70 million MAGA people turned into hypnotized domestic terrorists overnight, your university bosses might wave you through the front door.
However, either way, the concept of mass formation hypnosis is bullshit, and the truth is: people make choices.
There is no mass and there is no formation.
Mass formation, at best, applies to events like liquefied rock under pressure pushing up through the surface of the earth and rising into the shapes of mountain ranges.
It doesn’t apply to people, to individuals.
Even when we’re talking about the effects of news media hammering the same lies at viewers 24/7, those viewers can decide not to listen, not to believe, not to obey.
No matter how brutal the actions of an oppressor are, people can choose to resist. They can fight back.
The people who would never fight back, never resist, are always looking for involved theories that claim they CAN’T fight back; the power of the oppression is too strong, too hypnotic.
These people welcome mass formation like a guest at dinner. A guest that gets them off the hook.
Mass formation is sitting there at the table, eating his steak, sipping champagne, saying, “You never had a chance. The ‘forces’ put you under before you could respond. You were in a trance state before you knew what was happening. Don’t worry. There was never a way out.”
You don’t notice A WHOLE LOT OF OTHER PEOPLE in the room. They’re saying, “Stop fantasizing. There is no guy sitting next to you sipping champagne. That’s YOU, trying to give yourself an excuse. It won’t fly. Shit-can mass formation. Join our team. It’s called FUCK THE OPPRESSORS. Our team has no formation or mass. It’s just us. We don’t give in, no matter what.”
That’s the team who, down through history, fought for real freedom and won. That’s the team who enabled you to sit at your table now and have a pleasant dinner and contemplate pissing all that freedom away.
-- Jon Rappoport
I do believe Jon Rappoport in a past life was a speech writer for Moses. "Fuck the Oppressors-We don't give in-no matter what" What a spot on article. I could solve the bullshit coming out of Academia tomorrow. Cut off the money. Let the ivory towered con artist's sell their rubbish to the general public and see if they buy it. I think not. From Volvo's to begging bowls in one semester. Of course people make choices. The individual makes choices. Ever heard of a group making a choice to fornicate? I made a choice to quit college. Then I made a choice to listen and learn from people like Jon Rappoport, Celia Farber,Catherine Austin Fitts, ect. One denigrates the spirit of humanity and all that's good about humans when one says "there is no free will". There is always a choice. Anyone who thinks there isn't is a worm.
A piece like this is disappointing not because I disagree, but because you are directing your derision and vitriol toward a complete mischaracterization of Desmet's ideas. You've set up a straw man to fling darts at. It's clear that you haven't read his book, and I wonder if you've ever even listened to him interviewed.
Desmet is not saying that people are not responsible for their own behavior. He is however, offering a sound psychological explanation for why otherwise intelligent people are
a) choosing to believe preposterous explanations unsupported by any credible data
b) intolerant of all explanations that oppose the official narrative, even while they are supported by mountains of highly credible data.
If you're going to attack his ideas on why he thinks this is so, read the book or at least listen to an interview. Then if you write something critical, you'll at least be criticizing what he actually put out there, not some crap you made up because you're in a bad mood or you hate psychology.
He is not saying people aren't responsible for their choices and decisions. On the contrary, he's in agreement that we as individuals are absolutely responsible for our own thinking, including the choice to let other people think for us. He, like others is also arguing that there is a massive and well executed effort to propagandize and manipulate people, to unconsciously influence their choices and decision making process. It's been going on in advertising for decades, and in countless well -documented government operations. Part of the solution according to Desmet is for those of us who are awake and aware, to stay vocal. This keeps hard core people from becoming completely comfortable with their decision to go along with the propaganda, and may succeed in bringing some others off the fence in the direction of sanity.